RUMANIA AND HER AMBITIONS
The great majority of the inhabitants
belong to the (Greek) Orthodox Church,
the number of Catholics and Protestants
being negligible. There is a small Mo
hammedan population, and the Armenian
National Church is also represented.
A HIGH PERCENTAGE OF ILLITERATES
Education is free and compulsory
"wherever there are schools," and though
great strides are being made in this re
spect, the number of illiterates is still
high, as it is estimated that about 50 per
cent of the inhabitants can neither read
nor write. There are two well-equipped
universities-one at Bucharest, which has
an attendance of more than 3,000 stu
dents, and a smaller one at Jassy, with
about 500 students. The state is doing
its best to raise the educational standard
of the country by providing, among other
measures, a number of special schools,
among them being 8 normal schools,
12 commercial schools, 17 agricultural
schools, and 6 schools of domestic econ
omy for girls, in addition to which there
are nearly 50 professional schools for
boys, some of them state institutions and
some private.
Military service is compulsory and uni
versal. Under normal circumstances the
young men from 19 to 21 receive a cer
tain amount of primary training before
they are called to the colors. At 21 they
enter the regular army, serving for two
years in the infantry and three years
in the other branches of the service, after
which they spend four or five years in
the first reserve, being then transferred
to the second reserve, and after that to
the territorial corps; so that a man's av
erage service in the army and reserves
covers a period of some 21 years.
The means of communication in Ru
mania are excellent, there being nearly
2,000,000 miles of well-constructed na
tional roads, and the railroads, which are
all operated by the state, yield a hand
some profit. In all, they amount to about
2,500 miles, of which more than 2,000
are state owned. In addition to the
working of all the lines, the state has the
direction of the commercial navigation
service on the Danube and on the Black
Sea.
Included in the population of the king
dom are many races not of Rumanian
blood; for instance, in Moldavia there
are thousands of Magyar descent, while
in Dobrudja and Silistria the foreign ele
ment is strong-Turk, Tartar, Bulgar,
Russian, and German being represented.
A CAUSE OF PERMANENT UNHAPPINESS
As is the case among the patriots of
many European states, there is a perma
nent unhappiness in Rumania because of
the fact that all Rumanians are not
united under one flag. Not only is there
a grievance against Russia because of
Bessarabia, Hungary is also unloved on
account of the many thousands of Ru
manians living in Transylvania. In the
latter province the Rumanians cling not
only to their peculiar dress and language,
never having been absorbed, but also dis
tinguish themselves and their Orthodox
faith by marking their houses with a
Greek cross.
The Rumanians are a better-looking
race than any of their neighbors. They
are taller than the stocky Bulgar and
have less stolid faces. There is often
great beauty among the peasant women,
and their costumes are the most brilliant
in southeastern Europe.
The Ruma
nians are of a southern European ap
pearance, while their neighbors, with the
exception of the Serbs, bear traces of
their Oriental blood.
It is natural for them, like other races,
to indulge in dreams of a day when a
great Rumania can be formed. Yet the
fulfillment of their ambition seems re
mote beyond possibility. These quasi
Latin people are not of a nature to make
friends with their unlike neighbors, Slavs
and Magyars, by whom they are entirely
surrounded, but they must needs asso
ciate themselves politically for protection
with the least aggressive of the two rival
powers on their frontier.
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